Play the Slate News Quiz

"Horses and bayonets" weren't the only specters of obsolescence making headlines this week. It was also a rough week for once-stalwart organizations like Google (whose stock nosedived after missing earnings), the New York Yankees (swept out of the playoffs by the Tigers), and the Boy Scouts of America (as 35 years of "perversion files" went public). On the other hand, Justin Timberlake is shilling a MySpace relaunch, so maybe there's hope for horses and bayonets after all.

Question 1 of 12

On Monday, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina were sent to Perm and Mordovia, two notoriously harsh Siberian prison camps. For what are they being punished?

Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina are two members of the punk band Pussy Riot.

Question 2 of 12

Who stunned a live TV audience this week by saying, "Oy, oy, I want people to buy me book, me f***ing book"?

Hanks accidentally dropped the f-bomb on Good Morning America, after being asked to imitate his profane gangster character from the film Cloud Atlas.

Question 3 of 12

Government data this week revealed a 17 percent increase in what over the last year, the first year-to-year rise since a historic decline began in 1993?

Question 4 of 12

Catherine Tekakwitha, the daughter of a 17th-century Mohawk chief, this week became the first Native American to receive what honor?

Question 5 of 12

Who penned a newspaper article this week to insist that he was alive and well, despite media "stupidities" that had been printed about him?

Question 6 of 12

Tensions are running high in the Middle East after a car bomb killed Wissam al-Hassan last Friday. Who was al-Hassan?

Question 7 of 12

San Diego researchers this week announced that a beluga whale called NOC was able to do what with remarkable similarity to his human keepers?

NOC's gift was discovered when divers thought they heard a human voice telling them to get out of the tank, but it turned out to be the whale mimicking human speech.

Question 8 of 12

In Monday's foreign-policy presidential debate, which classic board game did President Obama use to pooh-pooh Mitt Romney's plans for the military?

In response to Romney's point that the Navy has fewer ships today than during World War I, Obama argued that military budgets involve more than "counting ships."

Question 9 of 12

Talks between Iran and the "P5+1" bloc on Iran's nuclear program are expected to resume this winter. The "P5" are the five members of the U.N. Security Council. Who is their "plus-one"?

Question 10 of 12

Explosions in a Dover, N.J., warehouse this week were traced back to a bizarre criminal operation, involving the counterfeiting of what?

A group of nefarious ketchup counterfeiters was repackaging regular Heinz ketchup as a more expensive brand, but their scheme backfired when the condiment containers began exploding under pressure.

Question 11 of 12

Over the weekend, President Obama diagnosed his Republican challenger with what unusual health disorder?

Obama's speech accused his opponent of pivoting to the center after portraying himself as "severely conservative" during the primaries.

Question 12 of 12

Zynga, the company that created FarmVille, buried bad corporate news this week by announcing its massive layoffs how?

You got 8 out of 12 answers correct in 20 minutes 30 seconds.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=abbb4ca3f5b45cb0343e53cb2e23619c

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